The present invention is directed to a technique for providing employee data, and more specifically to a technique that facilitates automated comparison of employee data between a plurality of subscribers.
Historically, progressive companies have attempted to stay abreast of employee data, such as employee compensation data (e.g., salaries, bonuses, benefits, perks, etc.) so as to retain key personnel and to fill open employment slots with highly qualified individuals. Traditionally, progressive companies have accomplished this goal through subscriptions to a human resources survey service that provides employee data, such as employee compensation data. Companies utilizing such services have generally been required to complete annual forms, with respect to their employees, and submit the forms to the service. The service, in turn, typically after a lengthy delay (e.g., twelve to eighteen months), has provided a paper compilation normally in the form of a lengthy book of job market statistics.
As a general rule, employee compensation data from a subscribing company has also been included within the compilation received from the service. As a result, when a particular company over-compensated or under-compensated their employees (in a given classification), the compilation was typically skewed. This has frequently required that each individual company summarize the information provided by the service with respect to their employee compensation data. As alluded to above, another disadvantage of such a service is that the information is typically dated, usually twelve to eighteen months old, at the time it is received from the service. This has required that each individual company age the data, which can result in disagreements between executives and line managers as to the proper aging factors.
Many services that provide surveys also require an individual company to purchase separate cuts of data. This can cost a company a substantial amount of money when the company desires employee data correlated to multiple scope measures (e.g., industry, profit/non-profit, company size, revenue and geographic location). Further, a typical prior art survey service has required participants to match their job requirements to benchmark descriptions. As a result, companies that have attempted to fill a position that required unique skills or a combination of unique skills have frequently had great difficulty in matching those unique skills to a particular benchmark description.
In addition, most prior art services have used codes for each particular benchmark description. When these codes have changed, which has occurred frequently, an individual within a particular company must audit the provided survey to ensure that the codes the company utilized still match the survey codes utilized. In volatile job markets, such survey reports do not provide a subscribing company with accurate up-to-date data on which to base employment related decisions. In an attempt to provide more up-to-date data, various web sites have provided Internet accessible job information. However, the majority of these web sites have not implemented proper measures to ensure the accuracy of the job information provided. Further, these web sites have not provided employee data (e.g., employee compensation data) that is correlated to a plurality of employee attributes.
As such, there exists a need for a technique that facilities automated comparison of employee data between a plurality of subscribers. Further, there exists a need for employee data that is correlated to a plurality of employee attributes.